EurekAlert offered a press release from the American Physical Society over the weekend that may indicate that someone in the press office has won a round of drinks: The American Physical Society (APS) is elated that the Senate has approved the FYO9 Omnibus Bill, which will allow scientists to continue cutting-edge research that will lead […]
Category: Policy
Why “Clean Coal” Matters
Back before things went pear-shaped this weekend, Jonathan Zasloff had a good post about why “clean coal” is important: I think it’s terrific that the Coen Brothers are making funny, effective ads against relying on “clean coal” as part of the US energy program. But I worry that the clean energy community is really missing […]
Nationalism and Science
Via email, Mike Steeves points me to an Ars Technica article about a Thomson Reuters report on the “decline in American science”: The US is beginning to lose its scientific dominance. That’s the message from Thomson Reuters, the people behind EndNote and impact factors. According to a report in their publication ScienceWatch, the US’ science […]
How to Moderate a Discussion of Global Warming?
As noted in the previous post, I’m supposed to be moderating a panel at Boskone the weekend after next, with the title: Global Warming: Facts and Myths, (and all that jazz) This is not my usual line, but then, I don’t have to provide expert commentary, I just need to steer the discussion. Still, it […]
Message from APS: Support Science Funding
The American Physical Society has sent out another of its email alerts encouraging people to write to Congress in support of more funding for science. Actually, they’re urging people to send two messages: a thank-you to Speaker Pelosi for the generous science funding in the House stimulus bill, and a letter to your Senators asking […]
From Mooney to Zimmer
Looking for a way to kill some time on a Sunday morning? You could do worse than yesterday’s bloggingheads.tv Science Saturday conversation between Chris Mooney and Carl Zimmer: It’s a wide-ranging conversation, covering what to expect from the Obama administration, artifical life, the possibility of life on Mars, Sanjay Gupta, and the future of science […]
With Advisors Like These, Who Needs Policy?
A few years ago, the after-dinner speaker at the DAMOP conference banquet was Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger. As I wrote at the time, I think it’s safe to say that he didn’t make a positive impression on the audience. It also sparked a rather lively discussion afterwards, that some people speculated was the reason […]
The National Academy of Sciences Wants You
…to answer a two-minute web survey asking about what scientific issues are most important to you. The blurb announcing it is: What topics in science, engineering, and medicine matter most to you? The National Academies are interested in developing useful and engaging print and web-based educational materials on the topics that you’d like to learn […]
RFK Jr.
Looking over my scheduled posts for today, I see that there isn’t anything stridently political. Not wanting to shock the systems of readers still coming down off the election, let me add my voice to the chorus of ScienceBloggers expressing concern over the idea of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Environmental Protection […]
Selling Science to Congress
Via Facebook, of all things, a message reporting a conversation with Representative Bill Foster (D-Fermilab), talking about the best ways to encourage Congress to take science seriously. First, he addressed what’s been done in the past: On the effectiveness of the APS letter-writing campaign: *Recently I sent my chief of staff to a meeting of […]